Negotiating multiple identities on the social web

Many voices, one stream Negotiating Multiple ID ENTITIES on the Social Web Corinne Weisgerber, Ph.D @Corinnew

We are actors presenting acharacter to an audience - Erwin Goffman

How are we supposed to know who we will be performing for? ? ? ?? ? ? ?

In Goffman’s terms, we can now perform different plays to different audiences at the same time.

Are we performing for a human audience or for an audience of search engines?

Our onlineidentities arefragmented

What if an audiencecould piece all the fragments back together?

Google Portrait of Marc L.

We see identity fragmentsEngines see identity aggregates - MIT, Personas Project

PersonalRANDING& strategic self-presen tation

Personal Brand

Being too concerned withbranding restricts the selfJobs refused to be branded.He was not Apple. He wasnot Next, or Pixar. He was aunique self, full ofcontradictions and that’s whathumanized him.

The problem is that we thinkof a brand in the classical wayof thinking of the cosmos:it’s either this or that. It can’tbe both. It’s all about gettingthe positioning right.

We used to think of a particle the same way: it is either here orthere. It can’t be both places at once. It can only have oneposition. Or can it? Quantum mechanics suggests it can.

According to the Heisenbergprinciple, once we observethe particle and try tomeasure it, we disturb theway it behaves. This in turnchanges what we see.Maybe that’s the problemwith online identity. If youlook in one place you see oneaspect of a person’s identity. Ifyou look in another place youﬁnd another aspect. Whatyou’re looking for, whereyou’re looking for it and theinstruments you use to do sowill determine what you see.

The Internet literally chops ouridentities into packets and hurlsus piecemeal around the globe.Our digital identities, reduced tosubatomic particles orelectrons, fly at near light speedthrough semiconductors, wires,and cables strung across theocean floor. We mount to the airas waves from satellites, cellphone towers, and wi-fihotspots. We shoot out asstreams of photons from ourscreens, as waves of soundfrom our speakers, and glideacross the surface of our tabletswith the brush of a finger.

Crab Nebula Maybe the idea of the multiverse with its multiplicity of possible universes could somehow inform our concept of identity

Crab Nebula Maybe the idea of the multiverse with its multiplicity of possible universes could somehow inform our concept of identityOur very identities have become theindeterminate particles and waves ofquantum theory. We do in essenceexist in millions of places at once, beingobserved by a million others whointerpret us in a myriad different ways.The Internet deﬁes position, embracesﬂuidity, and fosters multiphrenia. Map of the Internet

CREDITSCorinne Weisgerber, Ph.D.Associate Prof. of Communication St. Edward’s University Twitter: @corinnew

Negotiating multiple identities on the social web

by Corinne Weisgerber on Jul 20, 2012

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